How prominent is driking on campus?

kittyscherbatsky
Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:26:24 +0000

Ok… Normally I wouldn’t post on one of these forums but my experience at UVA has been entirely unlike most of what was written here. I worry that you are getting a skewed idea of what the school is like so here goes.
First, people here drink quite a bit but drunk people only really pay attention to themselves- nobody is going to notice if your solo cup has sprite in it instead of jungle juice. You can even go greek and not drink because most houses give members some kind of incentive points for being sober at social events. (It’s an insurance thing) I do drink most nights that I go out but the times that I have been on medication from surgery etc and unable to drink or just didn’t feel like it, was broke, whatever, I still found plenty to do on the weekends. I wouldn’t knock the hoossober listserve but I think the simple UVA Connections emails would probably have better event coverage just because event promoters are more likely to know about it/submit blurbs to it.
Please don’t pay attention to whoever told you to stay away from Lambeth and Bice. If you want to live in on grounds housing (a choice I would also question after the obligatory first year) they are the only convenient ones. Forget “party dorms,” there is really no such thing. Don’t go for the Hereford single. There’s a reason they call it getting here-*****ed. Live off-grounds and set your own rules for your house or apartment. It’s not that expensive depending on where you live and you don’t have to get a meal plan (they are a huge waste of money) If you live off-grounds I’d suggest that you stay away from Grand Marc, though. It’s like MTV spring break in that place, I rarely got a good night’s sleep and the pool was full of broken glass. Drunk kids threw up in the stairwells a lot too.
Someone up there said that most people only go out on one night a week, friday or saturday. Most of the people I know go out all thursday, friday and saturday nights. Sometimes we’ll take a chill night off for laundry or to study for a test or something but we usually go out. We used to go to frats, now we mostly just go to bars for the drink specials. Most of these are two or three drink nights, nothing crazy. Please don’t assume that we’re a bunch of party-animal slackers, either. We are almost all on the dean’s list, double majors/in selective major programs, leaders in student organizations and about half of us are Echols Scholars or in similar programs. Anyway, that social schedule is what I have come to accept as normal for a UVA student. Work hard, play hard.
And I hate to break it to you but you will not be fluent in four languages by the time you graduate. One of my majors is in a foreign language and while I am fluent it is not because of UVA. 1) Most of the modern language departments are under-funded and do not have enough class space. 2) UVA’s abroad programs yield unimpressive results. Most people I know who decide to go come back sounding just as american as they did when they left. Find a program to go on BY YOURSELF that gives you transfer credit and avoid other americans at all costs. That being said, I hear the summer language institute is pretty good. It’s sort of modeled after Middlebury’s famous summer programs.
I’m glad you’re excited to apply. Toss the numbers out the window, though. I don’t even remember what I got on any standardized tests. I’m out of state so I guess my scores must have been ok but really, a lot of stupid people get in here and a lot of smart people get rejected. It’s a mixed bag and no specific score on the ACT will guarantee you admission. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t strive to do well on them, obviously you should. Just don’t put too much faith in the numbers and do try to complement your scores by actually being an interesting person. (Which I’m sure you are) Good luck, I’ll write again if I remember anything else that I felt was being misrepresented.